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French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron has set up his own political movement, saying he wants to find “new ideas” for France. Macron, 38, announced the creation of “En Marche” (“On the Move”) in Amiens, portraying the movement as a think-tank that would listen to ideas from other parties of the right and left — providing they held “republican” ideals, a euphemism often used to exclude the far-right National Front (FN).

“I’m in a left-wing government, unashamedly, … but I also want to work with people from the right, who commit to the same values. This ambition, it’s radical, it’s a bit crazy, but there is such an energy in the country. I see all the things I don’t manage to get done, all the things that are blocked, and this movement is [intended] to get beyond these [obstacles].”

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A macron is a diacritical mark, a straight bar ( ¯ ) placed above a letter, usually a vowel. Its name derives from the Greek μακρόν (makrón), meaning “long”, and it [usually] marks a long vowel.

Of course, when dealing with the French language, it’s always important to remember the significance of diacritical marks –those little typographic addenda which ornament various vowels and consonants. The ones most commonly used in French are the accent grave, the accent aigu, the circumflex, and the cédille (which itself contains an accent aigu). The cédille transforms pronunciation of the letter ‘c’ into an ‘s’ sound (as in François), while the accent aigu changes pronunciation of the letter ‘e’ into an ‘ay’ sound (hay is for horses).

So what happens when we add un petit accent aigu to the final letter of M. Macron’s movement En Marche? We get the phrase En Marché. And although a strictly literal translation of en marché into English would be rendered as “in the market,” a more colloquial formulation might instead be “up for sale” or perhaps “looking to deal.”

Former RPR prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarinsaid this week he could even imagine Macron as premier under a center-right president such as Alain Juppé, who is currently leading opinion polls ahead of the 2017 presidential election. “The best prime minister for a president from the moderate right would be Emmanuel Macron,” Raffarin said.